Google has acquired Emu, a new mobile messaging application that just exited beta earlier this year. Emu was at heart an IM client, but it differentiated itself from the crowded market with smart features that incorporated a virtual assistant not unlike Siri to automate tasks based on your conversations – meaning you could do things like schedule appointments to your calendar, set reminders and even make reservations at a restaurant directly from your conversations. Emu’s roots were deep; its co-founder and CEO Gummi Hafsteinsson is ex-Google and ex-Apple, where he worked on Siri after coming on board following that startup’s acquisition. Emu works a lot like Google Now, too, scouring your conversations for contextual information about your life and plans in order to provide recommendations in-line about booking appointments, restaurant ratings and reviews and even things like movie suggestions.